A Tortured Mind
by Victoro
Summary: Genius Edward is finishing his Math degree when he is forced to tutor military jock Emmett.  Despite their differences, fate has plans for these two... Slash M/M AH
1. Chapter 1  A Tortured Soul

**AN: Hi, everyone! My name is Randy Carpenter! This is a fanfic that's been in my head for a long time. I would like to thank the best beta in the world, my cousin, Penny, for helping me get this together! Without her, I would not be as good of a writer as I am today! **

**As a college student, I am excited to write a college fic with Edward and Emmett (Yummy)! This is a slash, with lemons, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it!**

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own anything Twilight, I do, however, own 17 black socks and one white one...go figure...**

Chapter 1 – A Tortured Soul

EdPOV

Sitting at my desk in the dimly lit room, I stared at the math book in front of me. I had already done all the studying and homework I needed to do for the week, so I decided to get ahead. It _was_ Tuesday night, after all. I pinched the current page, flipped ahead to the next page, and back to the original page, to gauge how much I was planning to do. Picking up my pencil, I sighed again. It was midnight, and I was beginning to feel sleepy. Fighting the urge to be mad at myself for feeling sleepy, I grabbed the bottle of Ritalin I had sitting by the lamp. Sleep was such a waste. The label said "Jasper Whitlock" and "Take one as needed." My name wasn't Jasper, but I took one as needed.

One o'clock came, and I had finished two pages. The room smelled of cigarettes and genius. With a half burned cigarette in one hand and a fresh pencil in another, I began the next few pages. Two o'clock hit, and I realized that after a few more pages, I wasn't being challenged by this anymore. I took a deep breath and ran my fingers through my hair. I was on edge. I had all this artificial energy in me and I had to release it. I stared at the cover of my math book and realized no one would ever want to date an awkward, geeky, math nerd with almost no social skills. With the compiled stress of performing perfectly, and my own lack of companionship, I began to cry.

My alarm went off at 6 AM as it always did. I painfully lifted my head off the desk and, with blurred vision, looked at the clock. Damn, I was so tired. Regardless, I still forced myself beyond what my body told me to do and got ready for school. By the time I finished my shower and got dressed, it was 7 AM, and I was awake enough to start my day.

I had something against sleep ever since I could remember. Sleep was an enemy. It was falling behind on getting ahead. It was letting go so my subconscious could have free reign of me. It was imperfection and lack of control, and I didn't want to need it.

My first class was Calculus at 7:45 AM. I sauntered in and sat in the usual spot. Alice greeted me and sat next to me. Alice was another genius. She had jet black hair and dressed in all black. Many people called her goth. I didn't care; she was about the only one who would talk to me without having to.

"What did you think of the math test Monday?" She asked cheerfully.

"Yeah, it was fine," I grunted, rubbing my eyes.

"Hard night last night?" She asked sweetly.

"Just stress," I said, zoning in to the chalkboard. I actually liked talking to Alice, but I wasn't in the mood for chatter today. I think she took the hint and began to look in her notebook for the work she had most recently done. She then decided to pull out her last test. I glanced over and saw she made an 85. She frowned at it.

Without being asked, I scanned her paper to see what she had missed. "Having problems with sines and cosines?" I asked.

She put her paper back in her notebook and sighed. "I just started stressing at that part." She sighed again.

"Do you need to go over some of it with me?" I asked. I loved to teach people what I knew; it made me feel wanted.

"Thanks," she said, sighing again, "but all I need to do is study more."

I almost offered to sell her some Ritalin, but I didn't think we were that close yet. I didn't want anyone to know what I did, even if we were friends. This problem had been going on ever since I started college. I had no idea what to expect my first semester, so I would stay up for a week at a time studying and reading; making sure I knew everything the professor could possibly want us to know.

The class finally filled up with its usual people, and Professor Esme walked in. My heart started to pump harder. We were about to start learning something new. I figured it would be easy for me to pick up, but I gave it my utmost attention anyway. As the professor lectured, my pencil danced a familiar dance of brilliance and comfort. This was what I was born to do, I felt, so why did I feel something was missing?

**AN: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Please leave comments, any comments, so that I can improve future chapters! Yes, there will be more...Thanks for reading!**  
**P.S. If anyone has an extra black or white sock, please send it to me...**


	2. Chapter 2  Sink or Swim

**AN: I would like to thank very kindly the people that have read and commented on chapter one. It makes me feel very good that other people enjoy what I do! I would like to give another shout-out to my brilliant cousin Penny (Mrs. Agget) for the time spent beta'ing this. Love ya cuz! In this chapter, I introduce Emmett, another tortured mind!**

**Enjoy!**

**(P.S. This chapter was not preread. If anyone would care to preread my chapters, I would most sincerely appreciate it.) **

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own anything Twilight, unless you count the five hundred pics of Edward and Emmett I found online...**

A Tortured Mind

Chapter 2 – Sink or Swim

EmPOV

My body was swimming, but inside I was sinking. My trainer Carlisle had suggested we go to the pool and get some water resistance exercises done. I obliged, however, I couldn't escape my own thoughts even in the middle of the gym pool. The pain from the exercise always seemed to go straight to my heart.

All my life, no one ever told me how smart I was. I had plenty of friends, but I never was the one to think up stuff to do. I wasn't that smart. I did alright in school, mainly because my teachers would just tell me what to do and I did it. I made fun of the dorks all the time, partly because it was the cool thing to do but also because it gave me an excuse not to be brainy. As long as I made fun of dorks, I could justify not being like them.

My dad actually understood me better than anyone. One time he told me that not everyone could be a leader, and that being a good follower is just as important. At first, I was angry with him, cause he made me feel as stupid as everyone else did, but when I moved away to college I finally understood what he meant.

My first semester at Thomaston State University was rough, but I met a couple people who helped me through it. This year, I was on my own a lot more, cause my friends were generally taking different classes than I was, and they were getting busier too. I sat in front of the Military Science building, hiding to smoke a cigarette, and wondering if I was going to make it this semester. I was only one month into the semester, and I was already failing math.

I couldn't fail. Everyone said how proud they were of me about going to college, and taking Military Science, but their words got hollow when they began to remark about how smart I was and that they knew I would do well. I appreciated the support and encouragement, but not when it was fake. It wasn't a secret to everyone that I wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, and it felt very condescending when people acted like I was.

There were also other things that people didn't know about me. Things that I couldn't even tell myself without hating myself. I would come home from the gym all sweaty, and my dad would stop me and ask, "son, why didn't you take a shower at the gym?" Every time he asked, I made up a different excuse. The truth was, I was deathly afraid of locker rooms.

And there was a good reason for me to be afraid of locker rooms. One time, in middle school, I was taking a shower after football practice, and a friend of mine from the team began to shower next to me. When I glanced over to see who was there, I happened to involuntarily glance down and noticed a well developed manhood. I quickly jerked my gaze back to the shower head, but I couldn't release the image of what I had just saw. As I began to shampoo my hair, I look down and realized I was already half hard. I couldn't let him know he was giving me a hard on, so I left, right then and there, with a head full of shampoo.

I didn't even try to explain it to anyone, and it was never mentioned again. Needless to say, I never showered in public again. I often thought how ironic it was that in the career I was pursuing I would have to shower naked with other men. I often wondered why I even decided to do this, and I would always remind myself "Your not smart enough to think for yourself. In the military, they just tell you what to do."

I did have one redeeming quality about me though. I never gave up. I often found myself doing the same things over and over again, hoping against hope that if I tried harder the next time, things would turn out differently. Many people called this insanity, I called it Emmett-ism.

"Hi, Emmett," Rose said cheerfully. Rose was the only person I knew from high school that went to this school. She was smarter than me, but she never made me feel bad for it.  
"Hey, Rose," I smiled, "what ya doin' today?"  
"Nothing much," she said, lighting a cigarette of her own, "just got done talking to my math teacher about something."  
"Ugh, math," I sighed and stood up, "if I don't get this math soon, I'm gonna fail the course."  
"Well," she said smiling, "my teacher made an appointment for me with one of the math majors to get tutored, but there is no way in hell I'm going." She huffed on the cigarette, "you should take my appointment." She reached into her purse and grabbed out a business card.  
"Thanks," I said, unsure of if I wanted it or not, "but why aren't you gonna go?"  
"Don't have the time," she replied, looking down at her watch. "Speaking of time, I gotta go, hun." She bent over to peck me on the cheek. I cringed inside. She walked down the hill to the next building. I looked at the card she handed me. "Edward Knight, math tutor" an on the back it said: "Friday, 11 am."

**AN: Thanks for reading chapter two! In the next chapter, more problems occur as wires get crossed. Will Edward and Emmett finally meet in chapter three - The Tutoring Dilemma?**


	3. Chapter 3 The Tutoring Dilemma

**AN: Hey, my wonderful readers! I hope you are enjoying my story so far! I've had a couple readers** **tell me they feel my chapters are short. Well, I've decided that since they are so short, I should update every five days. Hope you don't mind. **

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own anything twilight. I do, however, own a used tissue I bought on Ebay that the seller said Robert Pattinson once blew his nose in. Best $50 I ever spent! **

A Tortured Mind

Chapter 3 – The Tutoring Dilemma

EdPOV

Thursday morning, I popped a couple Ritalin and threw the bottle in my bag before making my way to the campus to talk to Professor Esme. I knew to receive a doctorate in mathematics I had to have a certain number of teaching hours, but I was hoping to find a way around it. I loved to teach, but I was awkward with new people. I reached her office and peered in the doorway. She was there.

"Good morning, Professor Esme," I greeted, nervously.

"Good morning, Edward," she greeted back, turning fully to me. "I assume your here to talk about your tutoring requirement?"

"Yes," I mumbled, having no clue how she knew that, "I don't feel..."

"Edward," she said cutting me off, "you have to do this. You know I don't make the rules, the Board of Regents do. So, I took the liberty of setting up an appointment for you."  
She handed me a card, it said "Edward Knight, math tutor."

"You made business cards for me?" I asked, bewildered.

"Yes," she said smugly, "and you'll be tutoring a nice young lady named Rose. I expect you will keep this appointment?"

I stood up, and walked to the door. "Professor..."

"Don't forget to log your tutoring hours, too, Edward," she said, cutting me off again. "See you in class."

I had an English class before I made my way to the cafeteria for lunch. While I stood in line, a familiar voice came up beside me.

"Hey sexy," Alice teased, then laughed.

"What's going on with you today?" I asked, half concerned.

"Ugh, what a day, I just got back from the math lab, and they had no one to be tutored." She sighed, "If I don't finish my hours this semester, I can't graduate."

I reached in my pocket. "Here you go," I said triumphantly.

"Rose Dawn, huh?" She said, reading the name on the back. "Tomorrow morning, huh?"

"Can you make it?" I asked, fully concerned now.

"Thanks hun! I appreciate this a lot." She walked away excitedly.

"No, thank you, Alice..." I grinned, feeling happy with myself.

-xoxo-

Friday afternoon, Alice made it a point to catch me before class started.

"That was an EPIC FAIL!" She said, catching her breath from running after me.

"What happened?"

"First of all, I got there ten minutes early. Then, I waited for twenty minutes and no one showed up. As I was leaving, some jock walks in, saying he's looking for Edward Knight. I said 'you don't look like Rose.' And he said, 'yeah, I took her appointment. So, I said, 'alright, lets get started anyway.' I talked with him for half an hour and he didn't seem to be picking anything up from me, so I said 'OK, I think this session is over.' And he says 'well, can I make another appointment?'

"So, what did you say then?" I asked, interested.

"What else could I say?" She looked at me seriously, "we get in trouble if we refuse tutoring to other students." She handed me a card, it said: "Emmett Starr, Saturday, noon."

"Wait...your not giving him to me are you?" I said.

She smiled. "See ya in class."

I stared at Alice through most of the class, secretly cursing her under my breath. I really didn't want to tutor some dumb jock who was probably forced to be there anyway. I realized I was being judgmental; maybe this guy isn't so bad. Perhaps he felt the same way, being tutored by some egghead like me.

Later that afternoon, I went to the cafeteria to eat, my thoughts preoccupied by the tutoring session coming up. I casually made my way to the salad bar, observing the baskets of fruit artistically set up on the edge, giving the salad bar a fresh, vibrant feel to it. I scooped up some lettuce and plopped it onto my plate.

"Edward!" a voice called from nearby. I turned around suddenly to see who it was. When I did, my backpack swung behind me, crashing into a basket of lemons. The lemons rolled across the floor, almost going halfway across the cafeteria. My face turned bright red.

"Geez, Edward," Alice mused, "Clumsy much?" She bent down to help me pick up some of the lemons that had fallen nearby.

"Yeah," I said embarrassed. A cafeteria worker nearby went after the remaining lemons, so I stepped away, out of the view of most of the diners who had stopped eating for a moment to stare and laugh.

"You nervous about the tutoring?" Alice said smiling, as though she knew something I didn't.

"I guess so," I replied, "this is the first time I've ever tutored anyone in college."

"And I guess it doesn't help that he's hot," Alice teased.

"Alice, what makes you think I'm gay," I said, staring seriously at her.

She smiled at me, "please, Edward, if your not gay, then I'm the Queen of Egypt."

"What?" I said, half laughing.

"Edward, honey," she looked at my plate, then back at me, "it's ok. Dick is part of a well-balanced diet too."

"I'm not having this conversation, Alice," I said, smiling at her.

"Fine then, just remember, try not to get a stiffie while your tutoring him." Alice giggled a little and bounced away. I stared at her as she left.

"There is something wrong with her," I mumbled under my breath.

I turned around to go back to the salad bar, and I noticed the cafeteria worker who had helped pick up the lemons was giving me the evil eye. This was going to be an interesting lunch.

**AN: Thanks for reading chapter 3! Our heroes finally meet in the next chapter , but will it be their last meeting? Will Edward be able to teach Emmett some new tricks?**


	4. Chapter 4 More Problems

**AN: Well, Edward and Emmett finally meet! I would like to thank all my readers who have followed me up to this point, y'all are my inspiration! A special thanks to Penny who beta'ed this for me. I have a prereader; thanks carrottop81690 for volunteering. I promise I will send you something to preread soon. I put my story on an updating deadline of every five days, but, as a student, I have trouble not waiting until the last minute to do things. Anyway, enjoy chapter 4!**

**DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own anything Twilight. I do, however, own my very perverse imagination! **

Chapter 4 – More Problems

EdPOV

I was nervous walking into the math building. I didn't want to be here, tutoring a hot jock. Most gay men would kill to have this opportunity, I thought. Well, I wasn't most gay men. I felt really awkward when the conversation ran dry, and I highly doubted he would be able to talk to me on my level.

I walked into the math lab, and I was upset. He was even more gorgeous than I thought he would be. Jet black hair, eyes so dark blue they haven't invented a color to describe them yet, and a solid body hidden in army fatigues. He was something.

"Hi, Emmett Starr?" I said professionally and politely. He stood up.

"Alice isn't tutoring me today?" He asked.

"Sorry, but she won't be able to continue tutoring right now, I'm taking over for her."

Emmett almost looked sad for a moment, but he sat down anyway. "OK, egghead, teach me what you know."

I frowned at what he said, but I sat down anyway. "OK, so where we at?"

He opened his notebook and showed me a problem he was working on. It was basic graphing.

"OK," I began. "To find the slope of a line you need two points. When you have those, you subtract the y-coordinate from the first point by the y-coordinate of the second point, then divide it by the x-coordinate of the first point subtracted by the x-coordinate of the second point."

"Huh?" He said intelligently.

"OK, let me explain it this way..." I took out a sheet of graph paper and showed him how to work it out. "You see how to do it now?"

"Yeah, I guess so." I could tell he was getting frustrated. He picked up his pencil and found a problem in his book. He came up with the wrong answer.

"Emmett, that's not right." I said, almost apologetically.

He tore the paper out of his notebook and put his head in his hands.

"Don't give up," I said. "I wasn't born with the ability to do this."

"Yeah, but it seems no matter how someone explains it, it never sticks." He was frustrated.

"I have an idea," I said. "I know it'll sound silly, but it's how I learned this rule." I got up and placed three chairs in a triangle shape. He looked at me curiously. "OK, you see that I'm standing at this chair, and that there's a chair directly to my right and one in front of that. I have to make it from this chair here to the one diagonal from me, but I can only move front and back and side to side."

"OK," he said, standing up.

"First, I need to move forward." I counted my steps as I moved forward. "One, two, three, four."

"OK, you took four steps," he summarized.

"Yes, now I can move side to side." I took three steps to my right, finally touching the chair.

"OK, so you just took three steps to the right."

"Yes, so the slope is 4 over 3."

"Really?" His eyes lit up. "I can understand that. But, how do you put it on paper?"

I sat back down. "Well, you can only walk across the lines." I grabbed his hand and traced his finger from one point to another. "Like that."

"Holy shit, I think I get it!" He said happily.

"I'm glad you do," I said, and we both looked at my hand grabbing his. I let go.

"When can you tutor me again?" He asked.

I lead him outside into the Hallway. The tiled floor looked like a huge piece of graph paper. I put my keys on one intersection of tiles and my wallet on another intersection. "OK Emmett, walk from my keys to my wallet, and count your steps."

He did like I asked, and came up with the right answer.

"HELL YEAH!" He yelled.

"Very good," I said proudly, "Now, lets try this again..."

I put my keys and wallet in a different place, and I prompted him to walk. He took one step when we heard a voice call to Emmett from down the hall.

"Yo, Emm, whatcha doin'?" His friend called.

Emmett turned around, surprised. "I'm getting tutored, Mike," he admitted.

"Well, whatcha learnin?" Mike asked.

"Emmett turned from him to face me. "Slope," he admitted.

"Slope's easy, man," Mike heckled, and Emmett's face turned red, "I'll tell ya all about it at the gym. You comin'?"

Emmett began to walk away, "Thanks for the lesson, Ed," he mumbled, then he was gone.

**AN: Thanks for reading! Please stay tuned for Chapter 5, in which I have dedicated in memorial to the mass of teens committing suicide due to gay bullying. IT GETS BETTER!**


	5. Chapter 5 the Waking Hour

**AN: This is for all of those guys and gals who have ever been broken because of things said in high school and by being bullied. WARNING: some may find this disturbing. You were warned.**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Twilight, I do, however, own nightmares like the one Edward is having.**

Chapter 5 – The Waking Hour

EdPOV

I stepped into the long, long hallway, just the way I remembered it. A slight fog rolled across the floor, yet parted as I stepped near it. I glanced up at the glass ceiling and saw a beautiful moon with millions of bright, iridescent stars. A warm, summer night breeze swept across my face, and I breathed in the night honeysuckle.

I began to slowly walk, and peeked into a classroom. There I sat, right in front of the room, in Spanish class. The rosy cheeked teacher pointed at the chalkboard and asked, "Who can conjugate this verb?" My hand was the only one that was raised, and the teacher called on me. I rattled off the answer with a confidence that I've never had since. I stared at myself and smiled, then sighed heavily.

The next classroom down the hall was Chemistry. I saw myself in an apron and goggles, never really realizing until now how dorky I must have looked. Every classroom I passed was a similar story. Me, boldly answering questions no one else knew, feeling respected for my intelligence, even when I knew others were jealous.

I stopped and placed my hand on a locker beside me. The cold steel never felt so warm before, and I could feel its smooth texture on my fingers. I put my head down, almost in prayer, and stared at the worn tile below the locker. This building is who I am. This building is where I am happiest. This building was filled with adults who judged me, and always approved with large, red A's. This building is where my peers judged me, too. My thoughts began to grow dark, along with the hallway around me. This building caused me so much misery. The names I was called, the laughs at my expense behind my back, the…

I forced myself to stop thinking at that point. The frozen, rough steel of the locker repelled my hand. I looked back down the way I had just walked, and saw nothing but fog. I turned the other way and continued walking. Soon I came up to a dead end, and a chill froze my body. The only door was to my right. Panicked, I forced myself to step into that door. It was the men's bathroom. Scared, I turned around, only to hear the sound of the rocks sliding past one another. The door was now the lid of a mummy's sarcophagus. I ran into a stall to hide. The toilet water was putrid black and roaches freely associated all over the stained porcelain. Suddenly, I heard voices.

Deep, mean laughs entered the bathroom. It sounded like there were four guys, perhaps more. Suddenly the stall door opened, and a guy in the football jersey called his friends over.

"Hey, guys. Look what I found," he said happily. His face twisted in a sinister grin unlike anything the deepest bowels of Hell could offer. He and another guy grabbed my arms and threw me out of the stall. My face hit the opposite wall, hard, and I fell onto the ground. I cried hard, but managed to emit something to the effect of a plea of mercy. One of the guys grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. I saw my reflection in the mirror. My forehead was bleeding from where I had been thrown into the wall.

"We just wanna have a little fun," one guy said, laughing.

They picked me up again and drug me back to the nasty toilet.

"Swirley!" One guy chanted.

"No, please, I beg you!" I managed to beg.

"Then say 'I'm a cock-sucking faggot'," another guy ordered. The jocks laughed.

"Okay, okay, I'm a cock-sucking faggot!" I would do anything to stay alive.

"Not good enough," a voice said, no longer sounding human. The other guys laughed. He dunked my head in the water. A little got in my mouth, and I think a roach got in there too. Finally, my head came up. I wiped my eyes, only to see one of them holding a long knife to my stomach. A stench unlike no other filled my mouth and nose, and I could no longer speak. It was time to accept my fate.

"You know what we do to faggots?" The knife wielder said. Before I could even think, the knife went into my gut. I fell over, silently screaming to die.

The pain was real.

I woke up and bolted upright in my bed, drenched from head to toe in more than sweat. As I fumbled to turn on the lamp with my sweaty fingers, I made another startling revelation. I had shit myself in my sleep.

**AN: I know the writing is disturbing, and I'm sure the next chapter will be a little more upbeat. The nightmare you just witnessed is based upon real nightmares I have had in the past. I was lucky to have survived them.**


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